Red Mage meriting

[s_white62]

Would love some suggestions for how to properly merit a Red Mage. Any help/builds would be appreciated.

[Hyrist]

Might not be a good thing to get too invested in it as they're going to be revising merits soon, but if you want to put points in now I'll make my reccomendations:

Must haves:

Group 1:
5/5 Convert
Then your choice of:
Ice Accuracy Merits (I went 5/5 of this as we get the most benefit. (En-)Blizzard, Bind, Paralyze, )
Earth Accuracy Merits (To help with Slow landing on hard NMs)
Wind Accuracy Merits (Gravity, Silences, Aero.)


Group II:
Bare Minimum 1/5 Slow II as it overwrites haste.
After that you can go 5/5 Slow or
Paralyze II (most potent and noticeably better when 5/5)
Dia III (Good for NM fights as it stacks with Saboteur for a high defense down.)
Bio III (Great for Soloing)

Phalanx II and Blind II are highly debatable, as Blind II really is only great for evasion tanks and mobs that you don't floor evasion on (Ninja Blind is also much better.) And Phalanx II usually isn't worth the Merits as it's the same potency as Phalanx I and you can Accession Phalanx I to cast it on others.

I went
3/5 Dia III
5/5 Paralyze II
1/5 Slow II
1/5 Blind II (I have a lot of evasion tank friends.)

That's all for RDM specific merits. I'm wondering really how they're going to change them up.

[cidbahamut]

Bio III (Great for Soloing /BLU with a Cocoon build)

Fixed for clarity.

[Hyrist]

Fixed for clarity.

Dot Kiting.

[Neisan_Quetz]

Nuke more.

[cidbahamut]

Suck Less.

[Hyrist]

I love how since abyssea came out everyone thinks they're Avesta.

You could just say the tactic is aged and not worthwhile due to level cap rise/atmas in abyssea, etc.

But nooo, we have to pretend to be witty.


*stares*

Hmmm, maybe it's not a smart thing to read these forms after watching Zero Punctuation.

[cidbahamut]

You could just say the tactic is aged and not worthwhile

Then why would you recommend it to begin with?

We've got someone here who seems to be new to the realm of RDM meriting, so let's try to not give him bad information, ok?

[Hyrist]

Then why would you recommend it to begin with?

We've got someone here who seems to be new to the realm of RDM meriting, so let's try to not give him bad information, ok?

Because the information isn't bad?

There may be better tactics in ABYSSEA than DoT kiting, but when you break it down to the actual facts, Bio III stands potentially as our strongest DoT Debuff we have. It is also, bar none, the strongest raw attack stat reducer we have.

You want to say that's ONLY viable for /blu soloing, you'd be flatly wrong. If you find additional use for it (Such as using it as a powerful DoT/Attack Debuff.) It becomes useful for soloing in all methods, unless you want to go ahead and call pinning anything short of 'Wall of Virtue -1."

It would be bad information to ignore Kite DoTing all together, instead of saying it is an older method of doing things for those who don't want to abuse pathing mechanics.

With a group with two RDMs. It's always good to have their merits compliment each other. One with Say, Paralyze and Dia, and the other with Slow and Bio.

During the tank/proc phase Bio III is kept up, when the kill order is given, Dia III as soon as Bio III wares.

And of course Para and Slow are kept up by their respective higher-merited RDMs.

Also, Slasher, I go 3 merits in Dia III for the increased duration paired off with Saboteur. Although, I considered swapping out my Blind II for one point in Bio III, just so I had a stronger attack debuff. (Sabo-Bio III to rape attack calculations.) But I'm waiting on the merit adjustments before I make that choice, as I'll likely take one out of Dia II and go 2 and 2.

[Greatguardian]

Because the information isn't bad?

There may be better tactics in ABYSSEA than DoT kiting, but when you break it down to the actual facts, Bio III stands potentially as our strongest DoT Debuff we have. It is also, bar none, the strongest raw attack stat reducer we have.

You want to say that's ONLY viable for /blu soloing, you'd be flatly wrong. If you find additional use for it (Such as using it as a powerful DoT/Attack Debuff.) It becomes useful for soloing in all methods, unless you want to go ahead and call pinning anything short of 'Wall of Virtue -1."

It would be bad information to ignore Kite DoTing all together, instead of saying it is an older method of doing things for those who don't want to abuse pathing mechanics.

With a group with two RDMs. It's always good to have their merits compliment each other. One with Say, Paralyze and Dia, and the other with Slow and Bio.

During the tank/proc phase Bio III is kept up, when the kill order is given, Dia III as soon as Bio III wares.

And of course Para and Slow are kept up by their respective higher-merited RDMs.

Also, Slasher, I go 3 merits in Dia III for the increased duration paired off with Saboteur. Although, I considered swapping out my Blind II for one point in Bio III, just so I had a stronger attack debuff. (Sabo-Bio III to rape attack calculations.) But I'm waiting on the merit adjustments before I make that choice, as I'll likely take one out of Dia II and go 2 and 2.

DoT Kiting has been outdated since its inception. It's an overly cautious route that any decent Red Mage will never have to bother with, in or outside of Abyssea. DoT kiting is only "viable" when the Red Mage in question is incapable of putting together even a half decent nuking set.

Nukes are better, faster, stronger, and dwarf the overall damage/time of DoTs. Nuke more, suck less is the best advice anyone can give to someone who is actually utilizing DoT kiting.

Personal merit setup:
5/5 Convert
5/5 Ice Acc
2/5 Dia 3 (for 60 second duration, making it MP-efficient)
5/5 Slow II
3/5 Paralyze II